Journalist headlines <i>SJR</i> Centennial

The future of small-town journalism is the topic of a lecture this week as part of the San Juan Record Centennial celebration.
Judy Muller, an ABC News correspondent who currently teaches at the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, will speak at the Hideout Community Center in Monticello on Thursday, July 9 beginning at 7 p.m.
There is no charge for the interactive presentation. Refreshments will be served afterwards.
Muller recently completed a book about rural community journalism entitled Emus Loose in Egnar, Big Stories from Small Towns. The San Juan Record is one of more than a dozen rural newspapers that are featured in the book.
Muller will be available to visit and sign copies of the book after her presentation.
Judy Muller, an Emmy, duPont-Columbia and Peabody Award-winning television correspondent and National Public Radio commentator, joined the USC Annenberg faculty in August 2003, sharing her experience as a radio and television reporter with USC students.
Muller, who went to work for ABC News in 1990, covered the 1992 Rodney King trial and ensuing riots, the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the O.J. Simpson criminal and civil trials, among other stories.
As part of a “Nightline” team, she received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and an Emmy Award for coverage of the Simpson case. In 2011, she received a second duPont-Columbia Award, as well as a Peabody, for her reporting on medical marijuana dispensaries in Southern California.
A regular contributor to NPR’s “Morning Edition,” she also wrote a book about her experiences as a journalist titled Now This -- Radio, Television and the Real World. Muller is also a contributing correspondent to public television news programs throughout California.
Before joining the ABC News team, Muller was a CBS News correspondent who contributed to “CBS News Sunday Morning” and the “CBS Weekend News.”
She did double duty on CBS News Radio, anchoring “First Line Report” and “Correspondent’s Notebook.” Muller was also a summer anchor for “The Osgood File.”
Muller developed her individual reporting style during stints at The Colonial News and WHWH-WPST, both in New Jersey, and KHOW-AM in Colorado. She joined CBS News in 1981 and, during her nine years with the network, covered the space shuttle program, the 1988 political conventions and George H. W. Bush’s presidential campaign.
She is a graduate of Mary Washington College. 
Muller’s presentation is the second in a series designed to mark the newspaper’s Centennial year. In April, Professor Joel Campbell opened the series with a discussion about research he has uncovered on Marie Ogden.
Campbell, a renowned expert on the Freedom of Information Act, teaches at Brigham Young University and is completing a book about Ogden. Marie Ogden provides a fascinating chapter in the history of San Juan County and was the publisher of the San Juan Record for many years.
In September, two members of the McConkie family, Oscar W McConkie Jr and Oscar W. McConkie III, will provide insight to discuss their namesake, Oscar W. McConkie. Oscar W. McConkie founded the San Juan Record when he published the first issue in September, 1915.